Month: April 2014

This past weekend I went up to Zion with some of my running buddies to run the Ragnar Trail Relay. We did the McDowell Mountain Relay last year and so when one of my running buddies told us about a team that was looking for runners, we jumped at it.

A little burnt toast moment that almost ruined my trip, the day before I was to leave, I woke up with an issue in my back. I have had a lot of back issues throughout the year, but this was different, it got tighter and tighter all day when I was at work, everytime I went to get up from my ball chair, I felt worse and worse. So off I went to see my PT, Charlie, at Cadence Physical Therapy and he helped manipulate my back to get it back to somewhat normal. But how would I feel on the trails…

I was a part of 2 teams and as luck would have it the captain of the other team, Robin, had reserved 2 cabins way back in November for the race so not only would we be running the relay, we wouldn’t have to camp! Win win in my book. (McDowell Mountain was my very first time camping and while it wasn’t bad, there is no way I’m turning down a cabin with a real bed and a shower!)

We stayed in cabins 501 & 502, which was called the Overlook Mountain Home at the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort. I unfortunately didn’t get any pics of the cabin but you can find information about the resort & the various cabins/mountain homes here. Personally I would so recommend renting a cabin.

The drive from Phoenix to Zion was about 6.5 hours and except for the last bit in the dark, it was a pretty easy drive. I’ve really not been out of the Phoenix area since I moved here about 2.5 years ago so it was nice to see some different parts of Arizona.

The only complaint I have, and this is because my phone is attached to my hand, lol, I wasn’t able to access the internet, text or email during my time in Zion. I seriously have my phone no less than 2 feet from me all day long, mostly due to my job, but also because it’s habit and not being connected was so making me crazy – LOL!! Eventually I just went with it and said, I guess I’m not meant to do anything today & chilled out 🙂

Waking up the next morning to this beautiful, crisp morning.

waking up to a beautiful day

My cabin mates were overachievers who thought to bring all sorts of fun extras with them so we were able to start the day with our normal green smoothies, score! Thank you Margaret & Wendy for being so awesome and bringing the Vitamix with them!!

We had a really early start time 9:30am, because at McDowell Mountain we started late and were a little slower than we thought so we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time, especially since the elevation was significantly higher than in Phoenix. So we ate up and headed down to our camp site to hang out before our safety meeting.

All teams have to go to the safety meeting which goes over the trails, the different color and shaped signs to look for, what to do if you get hurt, if your runner takes longer than you expect, if there is lightning, etc. etc.. There wasn’t anything mentioned about snow or rain. Although I did hear later in the day that they added a little something I had mentioned to the director of the yellow loop about how it seemed like the signs were really far apart in some areas. They added that some of the signs were really close together when you could have other options and far apart when the trail was clear. They also mentioned about using headlights starting 2 hours before sunset for safety and that they would be adding blinking lights to the signs when it got dark.

Ragnar Trail Zion Finish Line

They told us about how we would be getting different wrist bands, green, yellow & red for our different legs and we would also have one bib for the entire team that we hand off after each leg. So after all this, we were off.

Tom starting us off in Leg 1 in green Night Run shirtMargaret, Runner 2 coming in after the Yellow LoopJoan our 3rd runner coming in after the long Red Loop

I was Runner 5, I didn’t really care what leg I did but it’s hard to wait around. When you do a regular race, you wait around, but just for a bit, this was for hours so it was a bit difficult in terms of what to eat before going out. I have a lot of problems with race nutrition when I’m doing a standard style race, but I eat relatively normally for relays. Weird. I wasn’t nervous for the relay like I am for regular races :).

Finally it was my turn, I got the bib from Mandy and headed out for my first leg, the Yellow Loop, 4.6 miles with a 600+ ft elevation change.

Heading out on my first leg, the Yellow LoopPhoto Credit: Joan Topham

Ragnar Trail Zion Yellow Loop Friday 2pmishTaking a quick break on mile 2 of the Yellow Loop – uphillView from the Ragnar Trail Zion Yellow LoopAnother uphill on the Yellow Loop – this one was sandy

I started out running thru camp for the first mile, then the second mile was pretty much a hill the whole way, I actually walked most of this mile, I didn’t train properly, after the Rome Marathon, I was recovering and just not real motivated so I wasn’t really well trained for hills, but since this was just for fun, I was listening to my body and my heart rate was out of control high so walking it was. The trail was a lot different than those in AZ. It was a lot softer than our trails and sandy in a lot of spots. The last photo above was pretty much all sand and the single-track trail was practically on the edge.

I didn’t get any pictures of the other part of the trail as mile 3 was a great single track downhill (red somewhat packed sand). It was so much fun, although you had to really watch your step. I cruised down this part. A part of mile 3 linked up to the Red Loop and then both loops (actually all 3 loops) would finish on the same section. The section at the end, was another uphill trail with numerous switchbacks, pretty steep, I walked this section too until we came up to another part of the camp. Towards the end of this loop, the wind had picked up so much that I actually had to walk for a min to be able to cover my mouth and nose (I have asthma and dust isn’t a good thing :)). I finished this loop in about 56 min (11:13, 18:30, 10:10, 11:39, 10:14 last .50) handed the bib off to Wendy and went to chill for about 8 hours before my next leg.

I was pleasantly surprised that I had no back pain during this leg or my next. I could still feel the stiffness when getting up from sitting, laying down, etc. but nothing while running. Yea!!

And off to dinner we went…

Ragnar provides dinner for the runners on day 1 as part of the registration fee so we headed over to the Mess Hall and chowed down.

I didn’t mind the dinner for the most part. I thought the veggies were awesome – really flavorful and the pasta was al dente. I’m not a fan of iceberg lettuce, but I ate it :). The bread was good, but I could only eat a few bites around the edges because it was still frozen inside. I normally wouldn’t eat cookies, but I was hungry and it was peanut butter so I figured a little protein LOL.

After dinner we headed back to cabin, where I took a 2 hour nap and just hung out while waiting for my next loop, which would be around 11:30pm. We weren’t exactly sure how long it would take the runner before me to run the Red Loop (8.2 miles) so I went down around 10:30p to wait, because I didn’t want to miss him. They had TVs with the team names & numbers coming up when your teammate was 2/10s away from the finish.

My second loop was the Green loop which as just over 3 miles. I unfortunately don’t have any photos because it was pitch black out and even though I had a light, it was super dark and I didn’t want to break or lose my phone. Besides I’m not sure if the photos would have come out in the dark.

I really enjoyed this loop, although it was sooo dark that I really just went super slow because they had mentioned that there was a super steep downhill section with loose rocks and I did not want to fall. I really didn’t think that down hill was that bad and compared to some of the trails I’ve done here, it wasn’t bad. I think my headlamp was dying though because I had a hard time seeing, or maybe that’s because my contacts were dirty, I don’t know, but I thought it was super hard to see.

Again, you ended up at the same uphill switchbacks, again I walked this section and then then ran when I got to the top. This leg I finished in 36 mins (11:55, 11:36, 12:22, final .02 8:41). I could have gone faster, but again since it was so dark, I just wanted to be safe.

I again handed the bib off to Wendy, told her to be careful since it was so dark and then headed up to the cabin to get some sleep. I figured I had about 8 hours until my next run, so I took a shower and set my alarm for 6:30am so I could get some food before heading out for my next loop, which I was estimating at around 10am. I woke up and went downstairs, saw Joan, who told me that Margaret, runner 2 had just left and they expected her back around 7:15a when Joan would go do the next leg. I got a small bowl of cereal and then went back to bed, setting my alarm for 7:30a.

I was awakened to a lot of talking and so I got up to see what was going on and this was what awaited me…

What we woke up to on Day 2…

Seriously, I think my mouth dropped open and I was like WHAT? Are you kidding me? I seriously haven’t seen snow in years, I can’t even tell you the last time. I live in the south for a reason and snow is one of those reasons :).

As we were all taking photos and commenting on what was going on, one of our volunteers, Maryanne contacted another of my teammates and told them that Ragnar had called the race. Only one problem, one of our runners and one of the runners for our other team were still on the course. Margaret, runner 2 was not only on the course, she was also wearing capri pants and vibram five finger shoes. John was in shorts and just regular running shoes. We were incredibly worried about both of them and wanted to do something, but and for good reason, Ragnar wasn’t letting anyone extra out on the course to look for people. So we waited and finally John came back to the cabin and then about an hour later (3.5 hours after going out) Margaret was back as well. Thank you Lord!

Walking down to the Village Ragnar Trail Zion

After they were both back safe and sound we went down to the camp site to start breaking things down. We ended up getting everything back up to Wendy’s truck and then the cabin in 2 trips.

Taking down the tent on Day 2My running buddies, Tom, Ken & I after cleaning up our campsite.

It was a mess, snow, mud, water, but we managed to get it all back up there and then most of decided to head home in case the weather continued to get worse.

It was a big surprise waking up on Saturday morning to the snow and not exactly how we expected our 2nd Ragnar Trail Relay to go, but I think in the end we all had a great time and really enjoyed the event. I know that we were all so relieved when both John & Margaret finished their loops and while the rest of us weren’t able to finish our last legs, I know that they made the right call for the safety of the runners. I would not have wanted to be out there in those conditions and I hope that no one was seriously hurt while out there when the weather turned bad.

While we didn’t officially finish, we were still awarded our medals and I can now add Utah as my 8th state that I have run a race in. (I did run my last 8.2 mile loop Sunday morning back in Phoenix, it was on the road and much flatter, but I felt like I needed to do it – if nothing else for myself.)

My Ragnar Trail Zion 2014 Medal

All in all I really enjoyed this weekend and I’m looking forward to McDowell Mountain again in the fall!

Have you ever run a race that was cancelled due to weather? And if so what happened?

After spending Friday afternoon at the Maratona di Roma expo and having dinner with my cousins & aunt, my cousin Simona took me back to The Beehive for some sleep. Saturday was a big day. A few months before I had met another marathoner via instagram, Laura, from the Washington, D.C. area who goes by @laurentinaphoto – Follow her – she’s amazing! Anyways it was her first marathon and somehow she came across The Roman Guy (follow them too :)) again via instagram and they (Sean & Brandon) were also running their first marathons and were going to do a little tour/shake-out run the day before the race. I have been lucky to have been to Rome many times, but since I have family that lives there, I don’t always get to do the touristy things so I thought, this sounds like a lot of fun and signed up as well. For 45 Euros, we got a tour of the Colosseum & Forum, a run thru the city & a super cool, Team TRG New Balance tank to commemorate the day.

So Saturday morning, I fueled up with good American style breakfast – eggs and toast 🙂 and set off for the Colosseum. The tour was going to start there and then we would do a 2 mile shake-out run going hitting up a lot of the best tourist spots in Rome.

I got there a bit early so I just walked around getting the lay of the land – before heading back to meet up with the group. It was kind of cloudy so I was hoping it wouldn’t rain.

Notice how the section on the right looks different than the section on the left? Brandon told us that they had actually renovated a portion of the Colosseum because they had taken a lot of the Travertine for other projects around the city.

It was a bit of a cloudy day, but the 12 of us runners weren’t going to let that get us down and so we started off with a tour of the Colosseum. Brandon did most of the tour, Sean was the photographer for the day and a lot of the photos you’ll see today are from him (THANK YOU!).

Love this pic 🙂photo credit Sean Finelli, The Roman Guy

I’ve been to the Colosseum twice before, but it was really nice to be on a tour, Brandon & Sean had insight into things that you just can’t know from looking around.

Brandon showing us a map of the what the Colosseum looked like when it was built.Photo Credit: Sean Finelli, The Roman Guy

Inside, they had built a partial floor to show what it would have looked like back in the day, I don’t remember that from my last visit in 2003. But that’s not to say it wasn’t there, 2003 was a long time ago :).

So after we left the Forum, we started down the stairs by the Palazzo Victor Emmanuel, which looks a lot older than it is. This was right near the start & finish line of the marathon.

personal photo

And so off we went. In Italy, unlike here in the States, cars stop when you cross the street, in fact they expect you to cross and if you wait for them they stop for you. It’s very interesting how it works.

The Pantheon is actually 50 years older than the Colosseum. It’s fascinating to me how it looks like a regular building on the outside and then a dome inside and where the famous Rafael is buried.

We hit up the Spanish steps but there were so many people, I didn’t feel it was photo worthy 😉 LOL. Little tidbit about the Spanish Steps, the poet, John Keats lived in the building to the right of the steps before his death at 25.

And on we went to Piazza Navona, where we saw Bernini’s fountain – I always think of Angels & Demons when I go to Piazza Navona now :).

Bernini’s fountain in Piazza Navona.Personal Photo

And then we finished up in the Campo dei Fiori, the market, in the center of Rome.

I really enjoyed this excursion and I would totally recommend it to anyone. It was an awesome way to see the city, Brandon & Sean were great tour guides, they seemed more like friends than guides 🙂 and I met a lot of really nice runners. If you are in Rome and are looking for a great way to see the city, I totally recommend contacting The Roman Guy.

So last time we spoke, I was just about to go thru passport control after landing in Rome. Got my passport stamped and I was ready to go.

First thing I had to do was catch a train from the airport to Roma Termini and drop my bag off at the hotel.

And so we wait…Train to Roma Termini

After about 15 minutes of waiting and a 35 minute train ride, I finally made it to the main train station in Rome. Roma Termini. My hotel, a cute little hotel/hostel called The Beehive (more about them in a future post) was literally 5 minutes from the station, however I was tired, dragging a huge suitcase and wandering around without GPS for over a 1/2 hr trying to find this place. I asked for directions, I walked in circles, seriously, practically in tears, and finally had to use my cell phone t0 call (who knows how much that cost me!) to get directions. And to find out what? That I literally walked around it about 5 times but just never crossed the street. Seriously?!? Wow…

You’ll find I like to digress some, ok, a lot and I have to say, this was one of the toughest weeks, without having access to my cellular data, (I literally am never without it due to my job) no gps, no iMessage, no Instagram likes, facebook responses, nothing without wifi. How did we survive, without all this technology??

Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled program.

The Maratona di Roma Expo was held at the Palazzo dei Congressi, which was probably about a 15 min ride on the metro, blue line. Another quick digression, I’ve lived in Italy, I speak relatively fluent Italian with a decent accent, enough to get by, I am 3/4 Italian with dark hair, people were speaking to me in Italian from the moment I stepped off the plane, asking me questions, even though, I have as good an idea as they do, it was hilarious. I say this because, I’m standing in line to buy my metro card and this couple is asking me all sorts of questions about which line to take, etc. like I’m a native, it was really funny.

So I took the Blue metro toward Laurentina, getting off at Eur Fermi, it wasn’t really clear to me at least which way to go, so I asked someone and off I went. After walking about a mile (give or take) I started to see people with red New Balance bags. I came up on the back of the expo, where the vendor check-in was and saw the cutest Maratona di Roma Smart Car (according to my cousin, a native Roman, there are like over a million Smart Cars in Rome).

Arriving at the expo, I was there pretty early so there weren’t many people there, I saw photos from others where that red card was completely full.

Red Carpet for Marathoners

42,195 vs 26.2

Inside the expo, it was pretty much like a normal expo, the only thing that was different in this race was that women’s bibs were in a separate section, at the end of the line. I should have remembered this for race day, but I didn’t and it was an issue the morning of the race. Just like here, pick up the bib first and then your shirt/bag at another booth.

Women’s bib started with F (at the end of the line) sorry for the blurry photo

There was a spaghetti lunch available but I wasn’t that hungry so I skipped it and headed into the expo portion of the building. The red carpet continued throughout. The expo itself was split into a number of different sections, first up, food & beverage samples, I skipped past this part, because there weren’t a lot of samples and most of the items were processed, not really things I’d use.

Then you walk thru an area with other races – there were actually a few sections with other race options, my favorite was the Kenyan Tourism board booth. I literally laughed out loud as soon as I saw it.

My favorite booth at the expo 🙂 Kenyan Tourism Board

I kept following the red carpet to where the shoe booths were, all the big names, New Balance (sponsor), Brooks, Mizuno & Asics had booths, along with some of the other big sponsors for the race.

The expo finished up with a charity section. Right outside was something I love, the first time I experienced it was at the Nike Women’s 1/2 Marathon in DC. It was a wall with all the names (in alpha order) of the people participating in the marathon – so cool :).

One section, it went around for a bit – there were 19,000 or so names!Found my name 😉

The swag bag was pretty cool, they gave us a 20th anniversary New Balance backpack, a New Balance tech T-shirt and some pasta. The backpacks were used for gear check too.

Swag from the marathon – where else do you get pasta in your swag bag!

The expo was Thursday, Friday & Saturday, and all in all it was pretty nice, I had read a few reviews where they commented that things were a lot different, but it seemed pretty similar to me. There were a lot more booths for area races, but I guess with the proximity of so many different countries, it’s kind of like us with states. With the exception of the big race companies, it’s normally local or near-by state races that exhibit at the expo, there other countries are as close as California.

I was glad I went after I arrived because it was a bit of a ride over and I wanted to relax after my shakeout run & tour with The Roman Guy on Saturday.

Have you ever done an international race? Was the expo similar to those in the States or completely different?

After a week of jet lag, work and life I’m finally ready to start recapping my trip to Italy and the Rome Marathon. Warning 🙂 this will be a bit long & lots of pictures.

Where to start…well let’s start with the flight to Rome. I was so unbelievably lucky to find flights on US Air using my miles and not only that, I was able to fly to Rome in US Air’s Envoy class on an A330 plane. I had to make 2 stops, but it was worth it to be able to be in one of the Envoy Suites for the flight to Italy.

I fly a least 4 – 6 times a year and I’ve been lucky to sit in first class on short domestic flights, but never internationally so this was a nice treat and perfect since I would only have 2 days before the marathon and I needed to get some sleep on the way there.

First Flight to Rome

Domestically, I had stops in Dallas and Philadelphia. The flight to Dallas is relatively short so there was just beverages and snacks. It was quite nice to see that one of the snacks was actually something that pretty healthy, Nature’s Valley Fig Bars, Non-GMO, relatively low sugar, no cholesterol, no transfat – super yummy! I had a raspberry one on the plane, but I actually had blueberry, apple cinnamon & peach-apricot in my bag.

Coffee & Nature’s Valley Fig Bar

Imagine my surprise when I looked at the US Air magazine and saw that the featured city for March was none other than Winter Park, FL. How cool is that!

After a nice and easy flight to Dallas, I had a relatively short layover, during which time I started sneezing and getting a little bit of a sore throat. Oh, no! Not a fun feeling to have, fortunately, a zyrtec and I was feeling better in no time.

The flight to Philly was a bit longer so we were served lunch on-board. I’ve flown first class before, but normally either short flights or on red-eye flights where you don’t get fed so this was a nice treat.

As we were getting ready to take off, the flight attendant asked us what entree we would like. There were 2 to choose from, a miso beef with bok-choy or a pasta duo (penne with marinara sauce & tortellini with alfredo sauce), since I knew I would be eating some amazing pasta, I chose the beef.

After we took off, she brought us drinks in glass cups, and then about 20 minutes later our meals.

Real Glasses!

My lunch included, Miso Beef, cooked well done, but it literally just melted in my mouth, it was so tender. It was served with white rice and a vegetable medley of carrots, green beans & I guess there was some bok choy, I couldn’t really tell. There was also a salad with a balsamic dressing and a chicken & slaw side too (I tried it but it wasn’t one of my favs).

For some reason, I didn’t expect dessert, but there was one, an amazing chocolate cake. For someone who isn’t a huge fan of chocolate for me to say it was amazing is huge :). Not that I didn’t enjoy the rest of my meal, but this was by far the best part. Super rich chocolate flavor, incredibly moist with a fudgy topping and cocoa on top.

The flight itself was fine, long, when you are anxious to get on your way to your final destination. The pilot told us we would be landing early and then we ended up having to circle the airport until our original arrival time, which was frustrating since I only had about 45 minutes to get to my gate for my flight to Rome.

Finally arriving in Philly and I literally got to the gate, had my passport checked and they were ready to board – talk about timing :).

As I was boarding the plane, the flight attendants were directing us to the various areas of the plane, the A330 is pretty large and in both Envoy & economy there are 3 sections, window, middle and opposite window so they want to make sure you go to the right side to make it easy for everyone.

My Envoy Suite was super cute and I immediately made myself at home, I even forgot to take a picture of it empty because I was so excited!

Not too long after I got semi settled, the flight attendants started coming around with a tray of beverages, they offered prosecco, orange juice or sparkling water. I very rarely drink alcohol before a race or on a place (don’t want to be dehydrated) but this was a special occasion and as I told my boss and friend, I was like what would R.J. do and said Prosecco it is! lol

They came around and asked us what we would like for our entree before we took off, there was a nice menu with 4 dinner options, Tenderloin of Beef, Sun-dried Tomato stuffed Chicken Breast, Citrus Mahi Mahi and for the vegetarians Spinach Lasagna Rolls. I chose the beef, I hardly ever eat beef in my normal day to day life, but you’ll see as I continue to recap, I eat a lot of it during this trip, interesting…

One last thing before we take off, they brought us cute little bags with some supplies – let me tell you the eye mask came in super handy.

And away we go…

Once we took off, things started happening quite fast. The flight attendants came by first with bottles of water, then hot towels, then to bring our starter for dinner.

I loved that they let you pick your own rolls and had wheat and multi-grain. The chicken portion of the appetizer was ok, nothing special and I tried the relish, but it had way too much onion in it for me. The salad was good – they had darker greens in it, none of that horrible iceberg lettuce, thank goodness.

The beef was really good, I don’t use a lot of sauce so I left most of that, but the sweet potato mash, so so yummy. That’s really the reason I choose the beef, of all the sides, that was by far the best option in my opinion.

Ben & Jerry’s Health Bar Ice Cream

There were several choices for dessert, Raspberry Mousse, a cheese plate or ice cream. This looked the best and it was good, although, the chocolate cake from the DFW – PHL flight was way better ;).

After dinner, they dimmed the cabin lights, I finished watching This Means War and went to sleep. The nice thing about the envoy suite is that the seat lays flat, however that doesn’t mean it’s super comfortable. I have long legs and while the seat laid flat, there was a bit of space between the seat and the extra portion for my feet so I felt that a lot. They gave us really nice thick blankets, but for the first time ever on a trans-atlantic flight, I was so hot. I feel like even with that, I was able to sleep pretty well and fortunately when I woke up I did not look like Debra Messing in The Wedding Date.

I woke up just in time for breakfast and we were about 1.5 hours from Rome, over the Alps at this point.

Sunrise over the Alps

Breakfast is served…

Spinach & Turkey Bacon Quiche

There were 2 choices for breakfast, the spinach & turkey bacon quiche that I picked & a yogurt & fruit bowl. This was good, but unfortunately it wasn’t cooked all the way thru so I kind of just ate around the edges. It’s such a nice change to see lots of veggies & fruit accompanying the entree. They also served warm croissants and coffee. I tried a chocolate croissant and was a little disappointed, it wasn’t really worth it, but it was seriously only 2 bites.

Not too long after breakfast we were on our final descent and landing in Rome.

First stop passport control and then on to Rome…

Come back this week to see what happens next :).

Have you ever flown business or first class internationally? What was your favorite part?

About Me

Hi, I'm Jenny. I'm a runner, traveler and foodie. I spend most of my time exploring the world one racecation at a time with my ultra-runner husband. Keep up with our adventures here.
You can email me at runnylegs@yahoo.com.